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commanded by Ben David. For all she knew, he blamed her for what had happened.
    No, even if she had been able to find him, she couldn’t go to Bourne with her suspicions, in spite of the fact that they had arisen during her convalescence in Dahr El Ahmar. As far as he was concerned, she was the enemy. She had betrayed him. After what had happened, how could he think otherwise?
    And, of course, she herself had come under suspicion from having brought Bourne into the encampment. Colonel Ben David was not a forgiving man—in truth, he could not afford to be—but the change in how he viewed her shocked, then saddened, her. She was inured to the byzantine ways of her world, but nothing she had experienced before could have prepared her for how quickly and thoroughly he had turned on her. In fact, he had acted more like a jilted lover than her commanding officer. It was only later, after she had left, after she had decided to act on the intel she had overheard while convalescing, after she had been in full pursuit of her target, that the nature of Ben David’s true feelings had dawned on her. In hindsight, she realized that she had never been just an agent to him. Now, of course, it was too late to do anything about that, even had she wished to.
    The stormfront hurled the first fistfuls of snow against the window with a force that startled her. The glass shivered and creaked in the wind. It was then that she turned around and saw the man, thin as a blade, sitting at a table near the door farthest from her, and knew that all was lost.
    One man. A single man.” Christien looked at Bourne. “His name is Nicodemo, but he is more commonly known at the Djinn Who Lights The Way.”
    “Meaning?”
    “He is the advance guard, the outrider.”
    “In other words, he gets things done.”
    Christien nodded.
    Bourne stared out the window. It was late morning. Clouds kept
    rolling in from the north like waves on a seashore. Off and on, snow gusted in the wind eddies. The nameless man, who Bourne had come to think of as Alef, had passed into an exhausted sleep. Bourne and Christien had decided to take a break from interrogating him, though neither of them had wanted to.
    “Tell me about Nicodemo,” Bourne said. “Why are you and Don Fernando so concerned about him?”
    The restaurant occupied the top floor of a chrome-and-green-glass ultramodern building on Kommendörsgatan in the posh Östermalm section of Stockholm, close to where Christien lived.
    Christien shrugged. “I’ll tell you as much as I know, which, quite honestly, isn’t much; his origins are obscure. Some say he’s Portuguese, others maintain he’s Bolivian, still others swear he’s Czech. Whatever the truth, he came out of nowhere, quite literally. For some time, a decade ago, he seemed to be an investment conduit for Core Energy. During that time, the company mushroomed into a multinational powerhouse that buys and sells all forms of energy. No one seems to know whether he is still involved, or in what way. By comparison, the CEO of Core Energy, Tom Brick, is an open book. He was born in London’s World’s End, graduated from London Business School. Don’t let his lack of degrees fool you, he’s a very savvy guy.”
    “Let’s get back to Nicodemo.”
    “That’s the problem. Nicodemo seems inextricably linked with Core Energy.”
    “Nicodemo is a terrorist,” Bourne said, “and Core Energy is a legitimate company, a leader in the burgeoning energy markets, green and otherwise.”
    “That’s the most troubling part, Jason, the one Don Fernando and I have been investigating for months now. We believe that Core Energy is on the verge of making a deal that will be a game-changer, that will give it such an advantage in the new energy markets as to cause its profits to explode tenfold.”
    Bourne shrugged. “Business is business, Christien.”
    “Not when it leaves death and destruction in its wake.”
    “Which is where, I assume, Nicodemo comes